V90 inside london's ULEZ

[derek vivian]

I was hoping to get someone of engineering qualification to look at Cats to see if they can be improved, but also to design one to fit gas boilers. If we can it will ease back all this talk of forcing us to buy electric cars or to replace our boilers for very expensive ground or air heat devices. I can't afford either so I want to keep my V90 please. Come on you engineers!

[Forrest]

I suspect you are on to a loser with this one. Notwithstanding the technical challenges, where are the years of revenue for big business political sponsors in a cheap, bolt-on emissions device for existing kit?

[Laird Scooby]

Originally Posted by griston64

The main problem is sheer volume though Dave. The only way to get the traffic to move faster in London is to drastically cut the amount of traffic !

Having lived and worked in London for the first 23 years of my life ( some of which included driving in city centre for a couple of years ) I now find it hard to comprehend that the population of London is ( I think ) double the entire population of Scotland !!

The volume of traffic doesn't help either Mark. That said, if it moved more quickly and didn't get stuck behind buses, taxis and dawdlers, it would move quicker on the whole reducing the time it was pushing out emissions but also in the more efficient power band - idling in traffic is definitely not efficient use of fuel!

I spent just over half as many months in London as you did years and that was more than enough for me! That was ~20 years ago now and doesn't seem a day too long to be away from it!

[tofufi]

Originally Posted by derek vivian

I am very confused by all this ULEZ lark! My V90 (1997) has 'co' outputs well below the required level according to my MOT certs, but it is still not compliant for travel in ULEZ.

As I mentioned above, there is a huge difference between the engine performance at idle (MOT test) and the engine performance under the (then) NEDC emissions test the official figures come from.

The two are not directly comparable.

Originally Posted by derek vivian

I was hoping to get someone of engineering qualification to look at Cats to see if they can be improved, but also to design one to fit gas boilers. If we can it will ease back all this talk of forcing us to buy electric cars or to replace our boilers for very expensive ground or air heat devices. I can't afford either so I want to keep my V90 please. Come on you engineers!

As an engineer

The problem with gas boilers is predominantly the CO2 they output. CO2 is not a toxic gas and cannot be reduced or captured via a catalyst or other pollution control device in the same way that nitrogen oxides and other pollutants can.

There is a big difference between CO2 which is the main tailpipe emission, and pollutants like NOx, CO, hydrocarbons.

CO2 is a greenhouse gas but generally non-toxic, whereas the other pollutants tend to occur in small quantities now (thanks to engine design advances and pollution control devices) and are harmful to health.

We need to reduce pollutants to improve air quality.
We need to reduce CO2 created as it is a greenhouse gas, hence the move to heat pumps which can take their energy from renewable sources.

[derek vivian]

I am grateful for your explanations Tofufi, but would like to point out that my recent MOT gave CO at well below the required limit for 2000 - 3000 rpm. And that was also well below the Natural Idle Test it says on the test result sheet. So what you say is that the carbon produced by, for example, a gas boiler cannot be 'captured' in the same way as a Cat does in a car? At least you are an engineer from what you say so I appeal to you to find a way it can be done and prevent us from having to sell our Volvos to fund ground or air source heat pumps!!

[griston64]

Air source heat pumps are also pretty useless at heating your house and providing hot water !! We have one in our new office so It's from experience

https://www.edfenergy.com/heating/ad...eat-pump-guide

[tofufi]

Originally Posted by derek vivian

I am grateful for your explanations Tofufi, but would like to point out that my recent MOT gave CO at well below the required limit for 2000 - 3000 rpm. And that was also well below the Natural Idle Test it says on the test result sheet. So what you say is that the carbon produced by, for example, a gas boiler cannot be 'captured' in the same way as a Cat does in a car? At least you are an engineer from what you say so I appeal to you to find a way it can be done and prevent us from having to sell our Volvos to fund ground or air source heat pumps!!

A cat in a car doesn't capture CO2.

At a basic level It converts CO, which is toxic, to CO2 which is non-toxic.

(2 way cats also convert hydrocarbons, and 3 way cats also convert NOx, to less harmful things).

For air quality we want a reduction in CO.

To reduce global warming/climate change we need to reduce CO2 emissions.

I'm an engineer working in vehicle technology, but I can't change the laws of physics.

Burning carbon based fuels (oil, gas, coal) will always result in converting carbon and oxygen to carbon dioxide - hence the need to move to 'clean' sources of power such as wind and solar

[Laird Scooby]

Originally Posted by derek vivian

So what you say is that the carbon produced by, for example, a gas boiler cannot be 'captured' in the same way as a Cat does in a car? At least you are an engineer from what you say so I appeal to you to find a way it can be done and prevent us from having to sell our Volvos to fund ground or air source heat pumps!!

Given that most catalytic converters need to be at a certain temperature for them to work, they aren't practical on central heating boilers as by their nature, they are cyclical. As such, before the cat got hot enough to work, the boiler would have shut down having reached the required temperature.

Not to mention that you would suffocate from the gases that weren't able to escape via the flue as they should do.

Originally Posted by griston64

Air source heat pumps are also pretty useless at heating your house and providing hot water !! We have one in our new office so It's from experience

https://www.edfenergy.com/heating/ad...eat-pump-guide

That's absolutely correct Mark, there's not enough heat in the outside air (or the ground IMHO) for air or ground source heat pumps to be a viable proposition unless the property is insulated to the nth degree in which case you probably wouldn't need heating anyway!

There was an "expert" on them on tv the other morning extolling the virtues of them but he was also adamant that unless the property was very well insulated, they would be more expensive and polluting to run than an existing gas or oil fired central heating system. He also pointed out it would not get the hot water hot enough to be any real use so an immersion heater would still be needed. Progress?

[Laird Scooby]

Originally Posted by tofufi

Burning carbon based fuels (oil, gas, coal) will always result in converting carbon and oxygen to carbon dioxide - hence the need to move to 'clean' sources of power such as wind and solar

If we have more summers like this one with very little sun and not much wind either, the so-called renewable or clean energy won't be there, hence the global rise is gas prices we are currently seeing. Granted there are other factors involved in that but the main one was a poor summer, not just for us but for most of Europe too.

[derek vivian]

So we need to plant more trees throughout the land especially in towns and cities and of the variety that suck CO from the atmosphere? I will just enjoy my Volvo then and forget all this talk of climate warming?